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SOME PAGES TROM MY BOOK
CHARLES O’CONOR.
How the Great Lawyer Spends the
Evening of His Days.
(Nantucket Correspondence of the
Providence Press.)
After that long and terrible ill
ness, when Mr. O’Conor’s life was
despaired of by the whole counsel of
physicians, and his well-written obit
uary waited for a fortnight in all
the New York newspaper offices, he
came to Nantucket for recuperation
and a quiet summer’s rest. He re
turned to his city office in the fall
restored and ready to resume his le
gal drudgery, but began to fail so
rapidly that his physicians summar
ily ordered him back to Nantucket.
It was then that he abandoned his
practice and regularly retired from
the bar, settling himself for the rest
of his days in Nantucket. The
O’Conor castle is a large gabled
frame house, with broad porches on
its seaward front, and, standing on
the very edge of the bare and breezy
cliff, is one of the most conspicuous
objects as one approaches the island
from the sea. Over $30,000 was
spent in the construction, and, al
- the exterior is plain and sim
ple, the interior is most completely
appointed and elegantly furnished.
Furnaces and fireplaces defy the
winter blast, and polished floors with
India rugs and rattan furniture
make it the most delightful of sum
mer homes. This grim old bachelor,
whom the gossips persistently tried
to marry to Mrs. Hicks-Lord, is as
much a character as any of the Nan
tucket natives, and inhabits the great
mansion in solitary state, save when
his nephews and nieces come down
upon him during the summer months
He rambles about the cliffs and the
town with his hat on the back of
his head and both hands in his pock
ets, and is seen with one hand out
only when he has to carry a bundle
or an umbrella. Possessed of a
large fortune, and with a great and
honorable career to look back upon,
he takes life easily in these years
past his three score and ten, and de
votes himself to lengthening out this
vacation part of his life. Lawyers
still appeal to him for decisions, and
he acts as referee in many knotty
cases, writing out his opinions in his
own snug library, within sight and
sound of the sea. At present he i;
busying himself with a fireproof
brick and iron building in which to
store his books, and this new library
is removed a good distance from th *
mansion to prevent any chance of a
conflagration. It is solid and sub
stantial enough to defy the eleme L
for centuries, and may fitly serve as
a vault when he ceases to be the liv
ing occupant. His law library, com
prising several thousand volumes, i«s
regarded as one of the most comp l t
and valuable collections in the profes
sion, and with the addition of his
volume of general literature will
make an imposing show when proper
ly arranged in their new home.
“LA MARSEILLAISE.”
The story of this grand composi
tion, the national hymn of France,
possesses thrilling interest. To be brief
it was at Strasbourg, in the last week
of April, 1792, that, news of the
Austrian declaration of war having
been received, the Mayor, M. Freder
ick de Dietrich, invited one of the
numerous guests at his table, Rouget
de I’lsle, an officer of engineers,
aged thirty-two, to compose a war
song for the soldiers about to set out
to meet the enemy. The words and
music were written during the night,
and the song was given to an enthu
siastic audience next day by
Dietrich’s niece. The piece was giv
en to band masters of the several
regiments in garrison, and perform d
in public Sunday, April 29, a! th'-
parade on the Place d’Armees. The
words and music were printed imme
diately on a half-sheet quarto b
Th. de Dannebach, printer at Stras
bourg—a publication which availed
Rouget de I’lsle when subsequently
his claim of authorship was contest
ed. The song was popular; bv th
29th of June it had appeared in the
-Journal des Departments Meridion
aux. It spread to Montpelier,
then to Marseilles, where a copy of
the “Chant de guerre de I’armee du
Rhin”—to give it its original title
—was given to each of the famous
bands of Marseilles, “who knew how
to die.” They brought the song to
Paris July 30, 1792, where it took the
name it has ever since retained. Tn
his book, published in 1796, Rouget
de I’lsle calls it “Le chant des com
bats, vulgarement ‘l’hymne des Mar
seilles,’ ” and dedicates it “to the
manes of Sylvain Bailey, first May
or of Paris.” The original version
was addressed to Marshal Luckner,
and a copy was sent to Gretry at
.Paris, as the musician records in his
“Memoirs.” It was a particularly
unlucky song, for, apart from the
author’s own troubles, his mother died
of grief, attributing the horrors of
the Reign of Terror to her son’s
verse, and Mayor Dietrich and Mar
shal Luckner were guillotined.
The “Marseillaise” was first iden
tified with the events of the 10th
of August; at the feast in imita
tion of those ordered by Lycurgus,
October 14, 1792, the seventh stanza
was sung by a chorus of children.
This additional verse was long at
tributed to Marie-Joseph Chenier, but
in 1848 a poet, Louis du Bois, put
in his claim to the authorship—a
claim long received, but that was ut
terly unfounded. The seventh verse
was written by a young priest, An
tione Pessoneaux, professor of rhet
oric at the College of Vienne (Isere).
Vienne was celebrating the feast of
the federation, July 14, 1792; the
Marseillais was there on their mem
orable march to Paris, and the Pro
fessor wrote the verse for his pupils,
who sang it with immense effect as a
farewell to the Marseillais next morn
ing. Lucky for Pessonneaux that he
wrote it, for some months after he
was hauled before the revolutionary
tribunal at Lyons, where trials lasted
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
but a minute or so and sentence wa.-j
pronounced in silence. Tessonnaux’s ■
patriotism was admitted, but he wasl
a priest. “Who are you"/” asked!’
the Judge. “The Abbe Pessonneaux,!’
author of the last verse of ‘La Mar-J'
seillaise.’ ” The judge laid his hand f
upon the black cloth, guards, jailers
and citizens made way respectfully, '
and the abbe passed out, tree to g./
where he would. He died in a little
parish in Duerphiny, March 9, 1835.
—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
NAPOLEON THE GREAT AS A
NOVEL READER.
(International Review.)
When Napoleon became Emperor
he strove in vain to make the trou
bled and feverish years of his power
prod uce a literature. He himself
was one of the most voracious read
ers of novels that ever lived. He
was always asking for the newest of
the new, and unfortunately even the
new romances of his period were
hopelessly bad. Barbier, his libra
rian, had orders to send parcels of
fresh fiction to his Majesty wher
ever he might happen to be, and
great loads of novels followed Napo
leon to Germany, Spain, Italy, Rus
sia. The conqueror .was very hard
to please. He read in his traveling
carriage, and after skimming a few
pages would throw a volume that
bored him out of the window into
the highway. He might have been
tracked by his trail of romances, as
was Hop-o’-My-Thumb, in the fairy
tale, by the white stones he dropped
behind him. Poor Barbier, who min
istered to a passion for novels that
demanded twenty volumes a day, was
at his wit’s end. He tried to foist
on the Emperor the romances of the
year before last; but these Napoleon
had generally read and he refused,
with imperial scorn, to look at them
again. He ordered a traveling li
brary of 3,000 volumes to be made
for him, but it was proved that the
task could not be accomplished in
less than six years. The expense, if
only fifty copies of each example had
been printed, would have amounted
to more than six million francs. A
Roman Emperor would not have al
lowed these considerations to stand
in his way; but Najoleon, after all.
was a modern. He contented himself
with a selection of books convenient
ly small in shape, and packed in
sumptuous cases. The classical writ
ers of France could never content
Napoleon, and even from Moscow, in
1812, he wrote to Barbier clamorous
for new books and good ones. Long
before they could have reached Mos
cow, Napoleon was flying homeward
before Koutousoff and Benningsen.
THE VALUE OF THE MAN.
Jefferson placed the man at the
foundation of our system of govern
ment. It was by giving the citizen’s
abilities the fullest play and the
widest expansion that we developed
into a nation. Who shall say that
Itha unlettered Daniel Boone was of
"less value to America than Daniel
iWebster the statesman? Who shall
I decide the relative merits of the
{student in his library and the farm
er that feeds him? Who shall deny
that the man whose business ability
and financial credit pushes a rail
road through a wilderness where
homes and citizens may multiply is
not as serviceable to the nation as
the president in the White House
who adequately does his part?
In other lands the man was of
small account —there the trimmings
made the dish. Why is it that we
are now proposing to reverse our pol
icy and accept in its stead one al
ready proved faulty and acknowl
edged to be wrong where it has been
crystallized into a system? Yet that
is exactly what our president offers
us when he sets a rule to which all
business must mark time —when he
puts a commission in no wise re
markable for ability or comprehen
sion of modern conditions to pre
scribe rules alike for the foolish and
the wise. Nothing like it has been
known since the days of Procrustes
who fitted all men to the same meas
ure by cutting off the long and
stretching the short.
Start two railroads through terri
tories of like character; one will
succeed because of good manage
ment, and the other will fail, but
the president sets the same rules for
both. Money is needed for develop
ment and not the business sense of
those who loan, but a commission
of politicians must decide what sum
is sufficient to represent the values
offered to secure the bonds. Who
can say what is “overcapitaliza
tion”? Harriman is charged with
the crime of “watering stock”;
Mellen increases stock of the same
character 100 per cent, but no
charge is made against him! But
who shall say whether Harriman’s
success will not justify the confi
dence of the investor? Who will
guarantee that Mellen will pay back
the credit he has earned? Millions
were invested and lost in Kansas
lands. Why not punish overcapital
ization in that instance? The wealth
of Kansas today has outstripped the
dreams of her most sanguine promo
ters, but these would have been con
demned had Roosevelt’s policies been
applied to their methods.
The American merchant marine
has been crushed out of existence by
laws intended to nourish its growth;
the manufacturers of Massachusetts
are passing solemn resolutions ask
ing for the repeal of the law for
which they begged a few years ago.
The South which was made to pay
for the protection of others is out
growing all the favored children, sim
ply because the struggle for e\i-'-
ence here has been equalized, and
the man of fitness rises to the top.
What will the nation be when indi
vidual merit is denied recognition,
when all initiative is crushed to
serve a system and we begin to adopt
the policies that have made China
what she is? —Florida Times-Union.
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